2023 OUTdoors

[philipo]

Great win for Hassan. This young kenyan, 4th at world country, looks promising for Budapest

[philipo]

Hassan on for mid 29s but the young kenyan is sticking to her. Good to see that fringing paywall. 5 laps to go !!

[Occasional Hope]

American PVer K C Lightfoot jumped a NR and WL 6.07 in Nashville yesterday. Third best of all time.

[LuckySpikes]

I'll combine my report of Day 3 of the Japanese Championships with Day 4 reporting tomorrow.

All I'll say ATM is that a national record was set today and there was also a thrilling final on the track that lived up to expectations.

[Grassmarket]

Yeah, considering it was obviously going out on a mainstream German channel & not the equivalent of Vinco.

[LuckySpikes]

On Day 2 of the Japanese Championships in Osaka ...

It was relentlessly rainy but probably the most star-studded of the 4 days with probabaly their 3 biggest stars in finals action.

Only two of those three delivered victories though ...

In the Women's 1500 it was cagey until 800 to go when Nozomi Tanaka decided to take off. She won in 4:08.29, covering the last 800 in around 2:06.5 with a 61-low last lap. After Tanaka had gone, the rest clearly decided to sit and battle it out for the minor medals letting Tanaka win by over 9 seconds! Japan's # 3, Yume Goto, was 2nd and will very likely qualify for Budapest off her World Ranking. Teen "phenom" Yuya Sawada struggled down in 10th.

Ryuji Miura won the 3000 Steeple easily, 8:21.41. Medal favourite Ryoma Aoki had problems at one of the barriers and could only finish 7th. Aoki has a strong World Ranking though so he should qualify for Budapest along with Miura and maybe one other.

Haruka Kitaguchi suffered a shock domestic defeat in the Women's Javelin. She could only muster 59.92 with the gold going to Marina Saito, 61.14. Japan currently has a wealth of good female spear-chuckers and will have a full team in Budapest - Kitaguchi, Saito plus AN Other.

The Men's 1500 final was won in a Championship record time. After a 60s first lap Noguchi Yudai strung them out with a 56s second lap and it seems he was maybe the patsy to set things up for his more accomplished Toenec team-mate, NR-holder Kazuki Kawamura (Yudai finished 6th). Kawamura did indeed win, 3:38.45, holding off a few challengers in the last 100. Currently though Kawamura is outside the quota for Budapest but with a strong showing in the Asian Championships that would probably change.

Towa Uzawa won the Men's 200 in 20.32 (-0.2). He's currently on track to qualify for Budapest via World Rankings along with 2 other men TBD.

In the Women's 100 Hurdles there's 5 Japanese women who've run sub-13 this year (4 with sub-12.9 PBs) and all 5 made it safely through Round 1 and the Semis to Saturday's final. NR-holder Mako Fukube & full-bodysuited Asuka Terada were the fastest of the day, both 12.97 (+0.4) in the second semi.

[LuckySpikes]

I know, the coverage wasn't great, was it? It hasn't been that bad in the past . The missing out of introductions for the track races was annoying too. Quite rightly, the German commentator had a few moans about the coverage!

[Grassmarket]

At the Pfingstsport meeting in Rehlingen (GER), a Conti Tour Silver meeting ...

.

just catching up with this. I know we in Blighty like to complain about Gabby & her frequent interruptions, but here they cut away to the presenter in the last effing lap of the steeplechase.

[Grassmarket]

Preview for Hengelo on Sunday.

https://worldathletics.org/competitions/world-athletics-continental-tour/news/hengelo-fbk-games-hassan-bol-duplantis-holloway

[LuckySpikes]

On Day 1 of thefour day Japanese Championships in Osaka ...

In a quality Men's 5000 final eight men finished inside 13:30 on what looked like a warm evening. With a few laps to go Kazuya Shiojiri stole a march on the field and despite the desperate last lap efforts of Hyuga Endo & Kanta Shimizu he was never caught, winning in 13:19.85. A few years ago he was the Bronze medalist in the Steeple at both the Asian Games and the Asian Championships. Endo was 2nd and the very talented Keita Sato (foregoing the U20 race here) was a very creditable 4th in 13:24.29, just over a second outside his Japanese U20 NR. Sato is currently one of only 2 Japanese men in the World Rankings quota for Budapest. Yuta Bando is the other but he had another poor race here, just 24th. Contrast with Japan's female 5000m athletes - 9 of them are currently in World Rankings quota positions for Budapest.

After not breaking 10:08 nor finishing top 3 in her 2 recent races, collegiate record holder Reimi Yoshimura found some form to win the Women's 3000 Steeple final in 9:46.65. For the best Japanese women though, it's a case of going to the Asian Championships in mid-July, getting a fast time and high place there and hoping that's enough to get to Budapest via the World Rankings.

The 2021 & 2022 Steeple champion Yuno Yamanaka is having a break from the Steeple this year and instead she's having a fine season working on both her endurance and speed. She's already set a 5000m PB, had a good debut at 10,000m and here she won the 2nd heat of the 1500 in another PB, 4:16.49.
Nozomi Tanaka won the first heat easily and other women in contention for the Budapest team (via World Rankings) - Yume Goto, Saki Katagihara & maybe Ayano Ide - all made it through to tomorrow's final safely. Yuyu Sawada who ran 4:12.7 last year, aged 16 at the World U20s, just squeaked through as a little q. Japan's # 2 all-time, Ran Urabe, is not here. She's injured.

Roderick Genki Dean won the Javelin with 82.65, followed by Ryohei Arai, 80.60. Both are comfortably within the World Rankings quota for Budapest, as is the 3rd placer Yuta Sakiyama.

The quickest qualifier for the Men's 200 final was Shoto Uno with 20.49 (+0.4).

Tomorrow's finals include the Men's Steeple, both 1500s, the Women's Javelin and the Men's 200.

[Ursus]

Big PB and WL of 20.45 in wSP by Maggie Ewen.

Obviously in the shape of her life as she’s now set a hammer PB of 75.10 as well.

She also has a 62m discus PB but looks like she hasn’t thrown that since 2018.

[LuckySpikes]

Wrapping up the Japanese action from the weekend ...

On Days 3 & 4 of the Kansai Region University Championships ...

In the Women's 5000 Hikaru Kitagawa and Tomo Muramatsu, the 1-2 from the 10,000 and soon to be team-mates at the World Univ Games, raced again joined by Miku Isono, the 4th placer from that quality 10,000. After Muramatsu had led them through 1000 in a decent 3:10 this race got painfully slow with the next 3 kilometres each covered in something north of 3:25. Then at 4000m Kitagawa put in a big injection of pace and 3 others went with her, including Isono but not Muramatsu who had nothing to offer in response. Kitagawa maintained the hot pace and gradually dropped the others to win in 16:26.1, a pedestrian finish time but with a speedy 2:54.3 last 1000. Isono was 3rd.
Hikaru Kitagawa, I think, has a great chance of a gold medal in the Half Marathon at the World University Games, what with her endurance and her impressive change of gear.

Kento Matsui won the Men's 200 in 20.65 (-0.4), a 0.26s PB and equalling the Kansai Region collegiate record.

In the Men's 400 Hurdles Toshimasa Kuribayashi also chopped a big chunk off his PB, going sub-50 for the first time and winning in 49.45 CR.

On Sunday 11 Japanese men toed the line at the Ottawa International Marathon, hoping to take their last chance to qualify for the Marathon Grand Championship on 15th October (the Japanese Olympic Trials). They each had a target time of between 2:08:xx and 2:11:xx to qualify by a 2-race average of 2:10:00 or better within the qualifying window. However, it looked like the conditions played against them. The race started off cool-ish (14C) but temperature must have risen pretty sharply during the race because the Canadian elites interviewed afterwards complained about the effects of the heat. So, in the end, none of the Japanese men qualified for the MGC. To be fair, they weren't Japan's top drawer marathoners so it was always going to be a big ask for more than a couple to qualify.

With the qualifying window for the MGC closing today the fields are now set at 67 men, who ran one sub-2:08 or had a 2-race average of 2:10:00 or faster, and 29 women who ran a sub-2:26 or had a 2-race average of 2:28:00 or faster.

The next Japanese athletics coming up on the live streams is the Japanese Championships (incl U20 Championships) from Thursday to Sunday. It's all very easy to watch - broadly, there's all the heats, semis and field events on YouTube with all the track finals (and some sprint semis) on Japanese TV. There's an excellent site for watching Japanese TV channels (with no annoying pop-ups!) and those TV broadcasts are starting between 8.30am and 10.30am UK time. If you miss the TV broadcasts, the Japanese Federation usually uploads broadcast recordings of each track final to YouTube.

I'm preparing something (with regards to qualifying for Budapest) which will hopefully enhance your viewing experience of these championships and I'll link to that in the Live Streaming Links document.

[treadwater1]

One party result that went under the radar this weekend was Camryn Rogers throwing another NR (78.62) and beating the previous two world champions in the process. Price threw two SBs - 75.45 and 75.89, so still on the comeback trail. Wlodarcyzk threw 70 and change a few weeks ago

[LuckySpikes]

At the Pfingstsport meeting in Rehlingen (GER), a Conti Tour Silver meeting ...

There were 2 NR's for small states in the Women's 100 final:
1 Patrizia van der Weken (LUX) 11.12 (+0.6) NR - After her 11.19 in Savona this was her 3rd NR in 5 days! (She also ran 11.17 in the heats here)
2 Veronica Shanti Pereira (Simgapore) 11.26 NR - Pre-Rehlingen her NR was 11.37 and, like van der Weken, she broke it twice here (also 11.34 in the heats)
...
In 6th place Lebanon's Aziza Sbaity ran 11.61 but the day before at the Kurpfalz Gala she also ran a NR, 11.54.

Very impressive by Robert Farken in the 1500, 3:32.10 PB. He's now the # 3 German all-time. Thomas Wessinghage's NR is 3:31.58. In my memory I have David Coleman calling him Doctor Thomas Wessinghage - it seemed to me that he did that all the time!

For a moment it looked like Marta Garcia would be the surprise winner over a pretty loaded European field in the Women's 1500, but Mishmash came through for the victory, 4:06.51, with Garcia running a marginal PB, 4:07.23 in 2nd. Hanna Klein was well down in 7th after she had such a brilliant winter indoors and on the country.

Julian Weber lobbed the spear out to 88.37. Distances were well down for the rest of the field and for the Women's comp, won by Victoria Hudson with 61.99.

In the Women's Shot Put Yemisi Ogunleye (GER) won with 19.31, a massive 78cm PB.

At the Meeting International de Forbach in France, a Conti Tour Bronze meeting ...

Ephrem Mekonnen (ETH) left the field for dead in the Men's 800. After following the pacemaker through 400 in 49.5 (!) he won in 1:44.87 PB. Sam Reardon was 3rd in 1:46.56 PB.

Habitam Alemu won the Women's equivalent in 1:58.59 from Almanza, 1:59.66.

Roxana Gomez (CUB) won the 400 in 50.60.

[philipo]

MB 😄😄 She looked young to me on the start line